Studies of heart rate variability (HRV) have so far produced contradictory evidence to support the common belief that endurance training enhances cardiac parasympathetic tone. This may be related to the fact that most studies failed to specifically isolate the vagally mediated influence of respiration. This study used a cross-sectional comparison of… (More)

In order to determine changes in breathing patterns brought about by resistive loading, ventilation was recorded in 11 healthy subjects with four linear resistances (3.57, 5.75, 8.76 and 13.13 cmH2O L(-1) sec) added in a random order throughout the entire breath. At steady state, a breath-by-breath analysis of airflow was used to quantify the pattern of… (More)

Leptin is known to exert cardiodepressive effects and to induce left ventricular (LV) remodelling. Nevertheless, the autocrine and/or paracrine activities of this adipokine in the context of post-infarct dysfunction and remodelling have not yet been elucidated. Therefore, we have investigated the evolution of myocardial leptin expression following… (More)

Neurally adjusted ventilator assist (NAVA) assists spontaneous breathing in proportion to diaphragmatic electrical activity (EAdi). Here, we evaluate the effects of various levels of NAVA and PSV on the breathing pattern and, thereby, on [Formula: see text] homeostasis in 10 healthy volunteers. For each ventilation mode, four levels of support (delivered… (More)

The aim of this work was to evaluate the goodness of fit of a signal issued of the respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP) derivative to the airflow signal during rest, voluntary hyperventilation, and recovery. RIP derivative signal was filtered with an adjusted filter based on each subject airflow signal (pneumotachography). For each subject and for… (More)

We describe a 69-year-old patient with superior altitudinal hemianopia who contentiously denied having any visual impairment after stroke in the lower banks of both calcarine fissures. Although the patient did not produce intentional responses to visual stimuli in the blind fields, he showed reduced reaction times to stimuli presented in the inferior visual… (More)

The aim of this study is to investigate the individuality of airflow shapes during volitional hyperventilation. Ventilation was recorded on 18 healthy subjects following two protocols: (1) spontaneous breathing (SP1) followed by a volitional hyperventilation at each subject’s spontaneous (HVSP) breathing rate, (2) spontaneous breathing (SP2) followed by… (More)

To study the interaction of forces that produce chest wall motion, we propose a model based on the lever system of Hillman and Finucane (J Appl Physiol 63(3):951-961, 1987) and introduce some dynamic properties of the respiratory system. The passive elements (rib cage and abdomen) are considered as elastic compartments linked to the open air via a resistive… (More)

To investigate the interindividual differences in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), recordings of ventilation and electrocardiogram were obtained from 12 healthy subjects for five imposed breathing periods (T(TOT)) surrounding each individual's spontaneous breathing period. In addition to the spectral analysis of the R-R interval signal at each breathing… (More)